


Where is Neverland?

by GoldenWordsmith



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 14:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWordsmith/pseuds/GoldenWordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has always been a special boy. He was always wearing a smile on his face and having fun with the neighborhood children. He was charming, charismatic, and clever, he could easily sweet-talk his way out of any situation. If there was one thing Mr. Pan could say about his son was that he was very imaginative.<br/>Mr. Pan never imagined that it would turn out like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where is Neverland?

**Author's Note:**

> I really like this piece! I want to expand on it, and write as much as I can with it. For now, I want to share this with you.  
> I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and please leave a kudos and/or review.

“How is he doing?” Mr. Pan asked the doctor as he came down the stairs. Dr. Smee merely looked at him and shook his head. Mr. Pan looked down at his cup of tea that rested in his hands on the table as if a solution to his boy's problem swam in it. Dr. Smee sat down in the chair across form him and sighed. He didn't know where to begin.  
“Mr. Pan, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do. I've tried everything that I could think of, and nothing has produced any results.” Dr. Smee hesitated for a moment. He wished he didn’t have to say this, but at this very moment he saw no other choice. “I believe it’ll be best for Peter to be moved into a ward.”  
“No!” Mr. Pan shouted, “I will not have my son drugged up by doctors who only want to put him down like a dog!”  
“Sir, that is not what they do –“  
“Yes, it is, Smee, and you know it is true!”   
Dr. Smee sighed heavily, and stood up from the table. Quietly, he gathered his bag with his notes of Peter’s progress− or the lack of−, all the while apprehensive about his patient’s well-being and his father’s emotional state.  
“Mr. Pan, I sense that this is more about you rather than your son, but I implore you to please think about what’s best for Peter.”  
“I am – “  
“No, you are not!” Dr. Smee quickly lowered his voice, hoping Peter didn’t hear them arguing. “I know you fear the loss of your son, but keeping him from receiving proper medical care is not only selfish but also endangers his life. You won’t be able to care for him on your own forever, and he can’t stay in that treehouse for the rest of his life.” Dr. Smee rested a hand on Mr. Pan’s shoulder. “What would your wife say if she were here? What would she do at a time like this?”  
Mr. Pan’s eyes harden and he brushed off the doctor’s hand. “I know my wife well enough to know that she would never send our son to a ward.” He said in a harsh whisper and gestured to the door. “Good day, Dr. Smee.”  
Dr. Smee looked at him with great remorse, but made no protest. “Good day, Mr. Pan. I will return in a week for Peter’s next appointment.” And with that, he showed himself out.  
Mr. Pan buried his face in his hands, trying to sooth the dull ache in his head. He just didn’t know what to do anymore. He loved his son dearly, but he knew he couldn’t keep doing this to the both of them. Peter needed help.  
Peter has always been a special boy. He was always wearing a smile on his face and having fun with the neighborhood children. He was charming, charismatic, and clever, he could easily sweet-talk his way out of any situation. If there was one thing Mr. Pan could say about his son was that he was very imaginative. He could spend hours upon hours playing Make-Believe with his father and his friends. There was no mistake that Peter could’ve an amazing novelist or playwright, and Mr. Pan knew this ever since Peter was a toddler. He saw nothing wrong with allowing him to run around his fantasy world as much as the child wanted as he had believed it would serve as a great benefit for him later in life. Peter had the makings of a fine young man.   
Mr. Pan never imagined that it would turn out like this.  
As the years went by, the boys that Peter would play with drifted away, preferring to play video games and a variety of sports. Peter, however, had no interest in such things. At first, Mr. Pan was concerned that maybe he had gotten upset that his friends no longer wanted to play Make-Believe with him. When asked to “hang out” with his old friends, he would decline politely saying that he had other things to do, which wasn’t a complete lie. He would spend his free time exploring the small wooded area behind his home, and with the help of his father built a treehouse inside the trunk of a dead tree. Mr. Pan soon brushed off his son’s detachment of company as a passing phase. In the meantime, he bought a small green parakeet to keep his son’s company, which he had named Tinkerbell due to her constantly ringing her toy bell. Peter began having friends again when the neighborhood toddlers were old enough to play outside without a parent constantly watching them.  
By the time Peter was twelve, Mr. Pan noticed that his son was avoiding him. He could sense the wariness radiating off the boy. Mr. Pan figured it was yet another phase, the parental resentment that most boys his age go through to prove their independence. Peter would avoid almost all contact with his father in various ways, such as leaving the house early in the morning and not return until dusk or requesting to eat in his room rather than the dinner table. Mr. Pan played the role of the understanding parent and gave him his space, yet it hadn’t made their relationship any better. In fact, it had gotten much worse. At thirteen, Peter refused to come home entirely. Any attempt to keep him in his room was futile as Peter would just sneak out in the middle of the night.  
When Peter was fifteen, he had completely denounced Mr. Pan as his father. He had to hear this from a concerned parent of one of Peter’s friends. Peter had been telling all the boys in his group to stay away from “Captain Hook” and his “ship” or else he’ll throw you into the brig like he had done to Peter multiple times in the past. Peter hadn’t called him “Captain Hook” since he was eight when they were pretending to be pirates searching for buried treasure. Why would he be referring to him by that name? He had confronted his now estranged son, hoping to convince him to stop this ridiculous game and to come back home, but it was in vain.  
Peter had laughed mockingly from his perch in a tree. “What makes you think I’m gonna go with you, ya ol’codfish?”  
“Peter, you are fifteen! When are you going start acting you age? You’re setting a bad example for the little ones.”   
Peter sneered. “I am never growing up!” He stood on the thick branch and glare down at the man who he had once called father. “You Grown-Ups are all the same. Always coming here and ruining all the fun, telling me and the Lost Boys what to do, never just leaving us alone to play like we want. What right do you have over us? We don’t want to do chores or work, we just want to play forever and ever!” Before Mr. Pan could respond, Peter jumped out of the tree. “Grown-Ups don’t belong in Neverland.” Mr. Pan watched his boy stomp his way deeper in the woods and disappear into the trees.  
Neverland. Mr. Pan had heard that name a million times before and will hear it a million after. Peter often called the wooden area Neverland when he was younger, saying that it was a mystical place where children will never have to grow up. The walls of his room were covered in sketches of a lush-green island in the middle of a bluer-than-blue sea with a never-ending rainbow. Other drawings were of a Native American tribe that Peter had said that lived on the island, and of beautiful mermaids swimming in a lagoon and sun bathing on the rocks. After telling his Lost Boys about Neverland, Peter had hung up some of the crude drawings that the boys drew for him. Needless to say, all those drawings are now in his treehouse.   
Peter won’t see reason, and Mr. Pan knew that he needed help. He had sought the help of the well-respected Dr. William Smee who had been known to treat the toughest of psychiatric cases. Mr. Pan hoped that maybe −just maybe− Dr. Smee could pull Peter from his little fantasy world.  
Peter had been more than reluctant; he absolutely loathed the idea of another adult coming into his woods. Dr. Smee would come back from the woods with little more than a few notes of his patient’s odd behavior. He tried to coax Peter to at least sit down to talked to him, but of course Peter would refuse. Dr. Smee was determined to treat Peter, and pushed forward despite the lack of progress, but it appeared that not even he could help Peter.  
The boy who should have been a man.


End file.
